Download Labour and Radicalism

Labour and Radicals in English Politics
Party Formation, Suffrage, and
Ireland, 1870-1914
Practical and Intellectual Context
• Trades Union Congress –est. 1868
• No real radicals—goal of workers was to become
more successful in capitalism—not to transform
capitalism
• Fabian Society—evolutionary change by
ascertaining direction toward which society and
economy is moving and making pro-active
adjustments.
• Sidney Webb & Beatrice Webb, History of the
English Poor Law
Sidney (1859-1947); Beatrice (1858-1943)
So what?
• The Webbs and other Fabians had access to
those who ran England and their research
data could identify areas in need of reform.
• Their work helped transform the reforming
impulse, that had been done initially to
prevent revolution, then out of religiouslybased morality, into a more data-driven,
empirically-based enterprise.
Labour Party: The Challenge
• 1871 Trade Unions Act exempted railroad
union from corporate responsibility.
• Taff-Vale Case (1900)—Labour recognized
need to change law making their members
responsible for business losses during a
strike—need to have political party.
• Osborne Case (1909)—Union funds can’t
be used for political purposes.
Labour Party: The Success
• Labour M. P.s and workers generally supported
Liberals in 1909 Budget Crisis
• Liberals pass Trade Union Amendment Act in
1911—Union Funds can be used for political
purposes
• Strikes in 1911-1912 embitter labor-management
relations
• WWI—Labor is patriotic but demands post-war
reforms and Labour constitutes itself a separate
party in the wake of the demise of the Liberal
Party.
Kier Hardie (1856-1915)
Women’s Suffrage
• Emmeline Pankhurst—Women’s Social and Political
Union—1903
• Disrupted political meetings, demanding votes for women
• 1908—arrested for disrupting Commons—hunger strikes
while in prison
• March 1, 1912—Oxford and Regent Street windows
smashed
• June 4, 1913—Emily Davison at Epson Derby
• February 1913--Lloyd George’s house burned by WSPU
Emmiline Pankhurst
Force-feeding a Suffragette
The Ghost of Emily Davison
Emily Davison being toppled by Anmer, June 4, 1913
Ireland
• Home Rule forces had money and arms from Irish
relatives in the U. S.
• Irish Protestants in Ulster armed themselves and
were determined to resist Home Rule
• Edward Carson (1854-1935) led Irish Unionists;
railed against evils of Catholicism
• Soldiers said that they would not contribute to
Home Rule; if forced, they’d quit the army and
join the Irish Unionists
• Violence in Ireland Increases.
Edward Carson